Ulrich Beck

Non à l’Europe allemande. Vers un printemps européen

Paris, Editions Autrement, «Haut et fort» series. 2013

There are books that the critics sometimes find tortuous. This tortuousness can almost be delicious in a way, because these books are sometimes extremely well put together intellectually from beginning to end, but nonetheless, they are tortuous because how can a critic in just a few dozen humble lines hope to capture the spirit and breadth of the book, without falling into the trap of providing an inaccurate and pale reflection of the book in question? This is indeed the case with this book, which was initially published in German by a sociology professor at the University of Munich who currently teaches at Harvard, the London School of Economics and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

A taste of the book is provided in the preface by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who immediately begins by hitting exactly the right spots. This flamboyant troublemaker will soon be leaving the European Parliament and his presence there will definitely be hard to replace; he launches a warning in no uncertain terms that, “for the first time in its history, the European Union is weak, to the point that its very survival is under threat”. A slight exaggeration? Obviously, some people will believe so. Nevertheless, is this German Green really so wrong when he criticises the way in which political leaders, who are still too concerned “by their domestic affairs sucked dry by elections”, have managed the crisis and have permanently been late for the war with market forces? Is he really mistaken when he explains that the European model sought particularly by the British prime minister, “is not that of a united Europe whose foundations of legitimacy are based on the democratising of globalisation but on the subversion of the European Union and, ultimately, of the states by the markets?”. Is he in error when he follows the line of Ulrich Beck, who in his book constantly points out that the different EU countries are refusing to give the Union appropriate direction and guidance and have “created the conditions for the dawning of a German Europe?”. Is he totally off the mark when in the following terms he describes with such insight the ideas of the author that, “armed with its economic power, the Chancellor has demonstrated a remarkable aptitude by seeing in the generalised disorder, the opportunity to assert her power and impose her vision of Europe?”. Those who would dare claim that there is no basis of truth to this are either extremely audacious or completely blind…

Ulrich Beck’s entire thesis aims to undermine and expose the process that has taken place over the past few years and which has led Germany to gradually assert itself at a political level as the most important decision making entity in Europe. As recently indicated by the British historian Timothy Garton Ash, Germany has succeeded in imposing a European Germany in a German Europe on the other countries. This contrasts somewhat with the statement made by Thomas Mann in 1953 that called on and encouraged students in Hamburg to “aspire not to a German Europe but to a European Germany”. To this end, the sociologist connects his theory of the “ society of risk” with the crisis in Europe and the Eurozone. In his theory he claims that “by drawing on the concept of crisis, an illusion is created whereby it is now possible to return to the original situation once the crisis is over”, although the risk, as he defines it, “does not represent an exception, as the crisis, but… has become the normal situation as well as the driving force for significant political and social transformation”. In a Machiavellian way, the author explains that Angela Merkel has used this opportunity presented by the crisis, to transform the balance of forces in the Union in her favour by creating a situation of procrastination when appeals for aid to indebted states have been made and that she has increasingly perfected “a form of nonintentional domination whose legitimacy is based on permanent praise for saving money”.

“Merkelveli”, as the author calls her, has strengthened her dominant position and that of a German Europe by practising a brutal neoliberalism in the country’s external policy and a consensus tinged with social democracy, with the idea that if the German policy of austerity is to be extended to the whole of Europe, certain democratic standards could be made more flexible or circumvented. The author therefore accuses Germany of establishing a hierarchy of power between the different national democracies, that is no longer democratically legitimate because it is imposed by the dominant economic power. It doesn’t really need to be pointed out that the author does not accept the fact that “German Europe does not fulfil the fundamental conditions of a European society worthy of being lived in” and he points out that the mutual trust of European citizens has been undermined by the… “princes” who are now in charge of the Union despite the fact that “the vision of a united continent is being transformed into the demonization of Europe”. Given that the author is not prepared to accept all this lying down, he puts forward a number of ideas to define a European social contract and to prevent any demands for any single national democracy winning out, and, instead, to support the demands of the 28 different democracies and their own individual national democracies to help shape the development of a European democracy, because it is indeed a conflict of democracy that the Union is suffering from today.